Favorite Schools

Favorite Teams

Alabama

Change Region

comments

After prison, a new start for Army veteran trying to give back

Aid to Inmate Mothers

Barbara Pelzer is pictured outside Aid to Inmate Mothers in in Montgomery, Ala., May 28, 2014. The Montgomery nonprofit helps women in prison and those recently released. Since her release from prison, she has focused on community service work including the needs of veterans emerging from prison. (Tamika Moore/tmoore@al.com)
(Tamika Moore/tmoore@al.com)

"Don't go back to your old playground. And be around positive people." - Barbara Pelzer

MONTGOMERY, Alabama -- Barbara Pelzer lifts her chin, tracing a 4-inch scar across her throat with her finger.

She's an Army veteran, but the scar isn't from those years. It's from her time locked up, when a mentally ill woman tried to slice her neck open with a razor blade.

"In federal court I said I didn't want to press charges because she's in two prisons," Pelzer said. "She's spending life in prison without parole and she's in another prison because she's psychologically messed up."

It's the scar, in fact, that makes her want to help heal Alabama's prison system. "There's so much talent behind those walls," she said.

Pelzer went to prison in the late 1990s after she pulled a handgun and robbed a Citgo station clerk in Dale County. She got sent back in 2011 on a probation violation.

She said she received a certain level of respect in prison because of her Army service. Some guards are veterans.

Still, she said, "I couldn't believe I was incarcerated. ... When I saw bunk beds, I had to pretend they were military bunk beds. I told myself, 'This is basic training.'"

She was released from Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women about a year and a half ago. Since then, at age 61, she's focused on community service work. She's particularly attuned to the needs of veterans emerging from prison.

Many don't realize, upon release, that they remain eligible for benefits such as housing help.

"When some veterans are incarcerated, they think they're just doomed," she said.

In a typical week, Pelzer spends time packing bags at a food pantry, volunteering at a clothing closet and going to a nearby church to be a companion to elderly people with no one else in their lives. She meets monthly with prison officials to give her advice on how things could be improved.

Pelzer also travels around the Montgomery area to raise money for the Aid to Inmate Mothers social service agency. She has lived at its group home since she left Tutwiler on the day after Christmas 2012.

To women newly free from prison, she says: "Don't go back to your old playground. And be around positive people."